New camera setup documentation

[johnswenson1]

Hi Juha,

Today I have been going through the process of aligning the new cameras to the placer and ran into some slight issues with the documentation.

I just upgraded to the latest software.

First off: the camera setup page has a "desired resolution" section which is set to 640x480 by default. I presume one of the reasons for going with the new cameras is to get a high resolution so I put 1280 x 1024 in the "desired" fields since that was the highest resolution in the list. I hope that was right. Some documentation on what to put in those fields would help.

Next the instructions talks about "show pixels" all over the place, that doesn't exist in the latest software, I presume the equivalent is a zoom of 1.0

The part that caused the most problems was the section on adjusting the down camera mount. The problem was I had no idea what screw driver to use to make a particular adjustment. It was very difficult to see the actual screw down below the top plate with things like wires, rollers etc in the way. I just had to try 20 or so different bits before I found what worked. Something along the lines of "Use a small philips screwdriver to adjust the xxx screw" would have been VERY helpful. The fact that there seems to be at least three different head types makes this even more important.

The procedures themselves were great and easy to follow, the only problem I had was when doing the skew adjustment: what to do with the "base" screw. The adjustment seemed to take just the R/L and F/B screws, I was unsure what the base screw did and when to adjust it. I wound up leaving it alone.

I had a bit of a problem finding a mirror to use, for some reason all the small mirrors we had in the house had non flat backs (most rounded so they wobbled on the table). I wound up using a "camping shaving mirror" these are small pieces of stainless steel polished to a mirror finish. They are completely flat, can't break and fairly inexpensive. You might want to look into providing these with the kit.

So far that is it.

Thanks for the great customer service.

John S.

[JuKu]

Thank you! This is exactly the kind of feedback I desire. I can't improve the documentation if I don't know what is unclear there. I have improved and re-written the points you brought out.

Some specific answers:

> First off: the camera setup page has a "desired resolution" section which is set to 640x480 by default.

This is intentional, as there many machines out there that don't (yet?) have the high res cameras.

> Next the instructions talks about "show pixels" all over the place, that doesn't exist in the latest software

It is on the camera setup page, a bit down from the camera name, above the draw cross etc selection boxes.

> You might want to look into providing these with the kit.

I did order some mirrors from China to include with the cameras. Those cost about nothing, but it took three tries to find some that were actually mirrors, not transparent plastic pieces that are somewhat reflective when glued on a dark background... I found small mirrors on AliExpress under "mirror mosaic tiles". It didn't occur to me to search for travel/camping accessories. The three tries meant that the first hd kits out, were without mirrors; I do include small mirror in the kit now.

[Krzys]

I have a mirror that I picked out of my wife's powder package.
It has a diameter of 53 mm and is ideally suited for setting the camera


Regards.

Krzysztof